


These Inconvenient Fireworks

by thelittleone (beautybedamned)



Category: Kamen Rider OOO
Genre: 10 Genre Fic Challenge, F/M, Post-Canon, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-28
Updated: 2011-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-25 01:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautybedamned/pseuds/thelittleone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hina is afraid that if she steps through the door to Cous Coussier's attic, there will be nothing but an empty room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Inconvenient Fireworks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emothy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emothy/gifts).



Hina is afraid that if she steps through the door to Cous Coussier's attic, there will be nothing but an empty room.

The night before still feels like a dream: Eiji stumbling in from the rain, soaked to the bone and calling out for Chiyoko and anyone else to _please, please, help_. He had drawn one of Ankh's arms over his shoulder -- Ankh, looking worse for wear, limp and barely alive despite the lack of injuries.

Ankh.

Hina remembers the way she froze, only snapping out of stunned silence when a hand curled suddenly around her own. She had looked up to her brother who appeared as shocked as she, but Shingo had just smiled before he helped her to her feet to where everyone crowded around Eiji who explained that he didn't know how, but that yes, it was Ankh.

 _Ankh_.

Her fingers twitch reflexively as her gaze falls to the brass doorknob. The voice at the back of her head tells her to just reach out to curl her fingers around it, but she loses her nerve and turns around, ready to creep back downstairs where everyone else is still asleep.

She stops when she is yanked back by the hair, her lips voicing out her surprise though this is silenced effectively by a mouth slanting over her own.

She goes very, very still.

She's never been kissed before. It's always been kind of hard to find a guy who wouldn't feel threatened by her strength -- not everyone can appreciate the way she can lift a car with her bare hands; or how she can uproot a tree by just punching it. So she doesn't really know what to do when Ankh traces the inside of her mouth with his tongue, the tip rubbing against her own.

They are like that for what feels like an eternity: she, very still and unsure what to do while Ankh looks at her with those eyes of his. His hand changes in shape: first cold, hard and alien, and then warm, firm and familiar. His thumb traces lazy circles over her wrist.

When he pulls back, he tilts his head, his lips thinning in displeasure.

"You look like you half expect me to eat you up."

She can't help the flush that creeps up the back of her neck. Spending a year in France and making friends with the other foreign students have broadened her knowledge of boy-girl relations. She knows that Ankh doesn't mean the double entendre, but knowing that doesn't make her heart slow its jackhammer beat.

He tilts his head the other way, as if listening; those eyes falling again to her mouth. The gesture is more avian than human and all of what he is. Something else. Something not human. But nevertheless alive.

"Your heartbeat." His hand on her shoulder skims down, a finger's foreknuckle tracing a line down the dip of her blouse. "Afraid of me again, Hina-chan?"

She can't think; there is a warm settling in the pit of her stomach -- no, _lower_. Ankh skims that foreknuckle back up, his fingers suddenly coming round her throat and Hina's eyes snap up to his.

"Why are you afraid of me again?"

His fingers tighten when she doesn't reply. It hurts, but Hina doesn't push him away, though she know she is strong enough to. Instead, her fingers come up to fold over his and she blinks, her eyes suddenly stinging from something that is threatening to burst in her chest.

"I thought..." she whispers, her voice hoarse. "I wasn't sure..."

What is it exactly that she would like to say?

Oh, you died and even if I cried buckets, I was happy for awhile after Eiji explained your last conversation; that all you wanted was to be seen as something more than just a pile of medals -- that you wanted to be affirmed as something alive.

What is it exactly, really?

Oh, that it hurt to walk around this city because seeing the places I know you'd been to made me remember too much. Much, too much.

What is it?

Oh, that I ran away to another country because I was having a hard time dealing with the feeling of seeing my older brother and finding out I was in love with the ghost of you; and now you're here and I feel afraid that if I blink you'll be gone again.

What is it that makes his fingers loosen, she isn't sure, but the moment Ankh makes a move to step back, Hina reaches out.

She doesn't know what she's doing, really. She really doesn't. The kiss is awkward and not at all as practiced or as smooth as the ones she used to see couples share out in the open in the university courtyard or in coffee shops tucked away in side streets. More than once, their teeth click against each other and it takes a couple of false starts before they both fall into sync, finally finding a common rhythm that is similar to breathing; an exchange of give and take.

When they stumble through the doorway, Ankh's fingers thread through her hair. Those fingers fist and drag her close, an attempt to keep her flush against him all the while trying to maneuver around the furniture.

She hears him swear or something like it, his voice a low whisper against her mouth before his hand abandons its painful grip on her wrist to shut the door. When he pulls her with him as he leans back against the wood, there is a less than gentle tug on a fistful of her hair so that her face is tipped upward so that he can kiss her again; teeth catching on her lower lip so that he can savor her lip on his tongue.

The clock on the wall tells her that nearly half an hour has passed when they both finally calm down. As she tries to get a grip on her breathing, Ankh seems content to nuzzle her cheek, his slightly labored breathing a hum in her ear.

They pull apart when the door opens suddenly, Eiji's start of surprise reaching them from the other side.

"Oh, Hina-chan!" Eiji says, his face somewhat squashed between the frame and the door. "We were wondering where you went!"

She is very much aware of the sight Eiji sees, she herself can see it framed in the mirror off to one side: Ankh's arms are wrapped around her almost possessively, his chin hardly inclined to leave the perch its found on her shoulder.

"Eiji," Ankh murmurs and his tone is not happy at all. "Stop gaping stupidly at us and go get me ice candy. I'm hungry."

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 10 Genre Fic Meme hosted on my LJ (http://mlina.livejournal.com/631000.html). Prompt: UST (Unresolved Sexual Tension). Title taken from Vienna Teng's "Stray Italian Greyhound".

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [cure for the itch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/270062) by [emothy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emothy/pseuds/emothy)




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